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Vermont Bails on Single-Payer Healthcare

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin on Wednesday dropped his plan to enact a single-payer health care system in his state — a plan that had won praise from liberals but never really got much past the framework stage.

“This is not the right time” for enacting single payer, Shumlin said in a statement, citing the big tax increases that would be required to pay for it.

Shumlin faced deep skepticism that lawmakers could agree on a way to pay for his ambitious goal and that the feds would agree to everything he needed to create the first state-based single-payer system in 2017.

And that was all before Shumlin, a Democrat, almost lost reelection last month in one of the country’s most liberal states. And it was before MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, the now notorious Obamacare consultant who also advised Vermont until his $400,000 contract was killed amid the controversy, became political poison.

Terrible news. Just another example of how politicians will backstab the electorate right after the election.

Re: Vermont Bails on Single-Payer Healthcare

Terrible news. Just another example of how politicians will backstab the electorate right after the election.

Perhaps he's thinking this move will help him in the run-off next month. Or maybe...just maybe...he's one Democrat who actually puts the financial health of his State before a destructive liberal agenda item.

Too bad he didn't have the lobby muscle he needed to suck more money out of the rest of us taxpayers...or should that be considered a good thing?

Re: Vermont Bails on Single-Payer Healthcare

Terrible news. Just another example of how politicians will backstab the electorate right after the election.

I do not agree. Odds are they just came to the realization it would be a very difficult road to implement single payer in today's political and economic climate. Odds are there would be real legal challenge to kicking businesses out of the state in favor of such a system, they had to have known that.

On top of all of this liberals today do not have such a good name when it comes to who is in on the plan and the expectation of Americans just going along with it because of intelligence or aptitude issues. That really did not help your case, that sort of we know what is best for you because you are all idiots mentality. You may disagree but Jonathan Gruber went a long way to ensuring distrust for liberal ideas going forward.

"Every time something really bad happens, people cry out for safety, and the government answers by taking rights away from good people." - Penn Jillette.

Re: Vermont Bails on Single-Payer Healthcare

Originally Posted by SocialDemocrat

Terrible news. Just another example of how politicians will backstab the electorate right after the election.

At first glance, it looks at least in part like they're a "victim" of the ACA and near term health care both being cheaper than was thought even a year or two ago. For example, the ACA's waivers for state innovation (which Vermont was going to pursue) allows states that want to try their own thing to get an amount of federal money equal to the federal dollars that would've flowed into the state in the form of premium and cost-sharing subsidies under the ACA--in other words, they can re-purpose ACA money for their own program, be it single-payer or whatever. That was going to be an important funding source but apparently Vermont's estimate of how much that will be has been more than cut in half since their estimates only a year or two ago.

The better the current system does financially (and the more its costs come in under expectations), the more the relative advantage of switching to a single payer system erodes. Record low health spending growth, the lowest employer-based premium growth in years, lower-than-expected exchange premiums, etc are all good but they also have the effect of making the switch to single-payer relatively more costly than it would be if health costs were soaring. "This is not the right time" sums that up pretty well.

Re: Vermont Bails on Single-Payer Healthcare

Terrible news. Just another example of how politicians will backstab the electorate right after the election.

This decision was precipitated by the realization that there was too much opposition to the higher taxes that were needed for single payer. This isn't stabbing the electorate in the back; it's bending to the will of the people.

As was discussed when this first came down, they didn't make the tough choices concerning how they were going to pay for the thing. That was to come later, and this is later. I told you so, yes I did: they were not going to find the money to pay for it, I said -- they were afraid to speak the truth, which was that much higher taxes would be necessary.

They were looking at a 11.5% payroll tax and a state income tax of 9.5%. That ain't happenin. The anticipation of this crap was killing the business community.

If liberal Vermont, that had been working on ways for single payer to work for years, can't do single payer then it's not possible in the US.

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --HL Mencken